Thursday, January 27, 2011

Good News For Me - or - Bad News For My Shirt

Today I got to visit my oncologist and find out the results of the CT scan done yesterday. Both Julia and I were more than a bit apprehensive because I'd only had two chemo treatments before the cardiac arrest and a one month break from chemo to allow the whole cardiac system to prove it was in good condition again. If I;d have seeen no growth in the tumors I would have been happy and ready to proceed with a full regimen on the new chemo drugs.

Well, the news came back better than we or the doctor expected. The tumor that caused the thickening of the colon wall had almost completely receded and the other colon sites had gotten smaller. The tumors in the liver all look to have gotten smaller; the largest two of which went from a bit over 2.1 inches (5.5 cm) to 1.8 inches (4.7 cm) and 3.8 cm to 3.3 cm. Some of the nine or so tumors in the liver are close to blood vessels in the liver, so they are not good candidates for radiation or surgery, so this is a very good development.

On the negative side, because of the cardiac arrest, I can't use the drugs that gave me those wonderful results. We are hoping the new drugs I just took (5 hours of intravenous chemo - fun, fun) will give similar results. If it does not, we will look at getting cardiology involved in the treatment and finding medicine that may allow me to restart the old drugs. My thought is that at least we have something that we know works very well. It may take some doing to use it again if it is necessary, but it's nice to know something works.

After the chemo treatment today, which ended about one and a half hours ago, I'm feeling a bit light headed, a bit like nausea is coming on (I just took a pill for that) and a bit tired. All expected side effects. The nasty rash and hair loss can be expected around day seven. It's nice to have something to look forward to! Oh boy...

When I got home and stood after getting out of the car, I felt cold wetness on my chest around my port. I thought "Oh, damn...", knowing I'd been bleeding from the spot where the needle had been. A quick call to the clinic assured me it could not be from the port itself, which is connected to a main vein going to the heart, so a bit of pressure was all it took to stop the bleeding. My shirt, one that is old and has a small hole in it, was not so lucky. It had to be put down and tossed into the garbage. I'm including in this blog entry the last picture of me in the shirt. The coat, fortunately, can be washed.

Chris and Julia,It was so wonderful to see you last night. Thanks for sharing and keep us updated. It looks like there are still some options with chemo....but for now we are so glad to hear that the first two rounds of chemo had such remarkable results. Sending love your way. Gwen and Vaz.